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1 Gender and Emotion in the United States: Do Men and Women Differ in Self-Reports of Feelings and Expressive Behavior? 1 Robin W. Simon Florida State University Leda E. Nath University of Wisconsin Whitewater U.S. emotion culture contains beliefs that women are more emotional and emotionally expressive than men and that men and women differ in their experience and expression of specific emotions. Using data from the 1996 emotions module of the GSS, the authors investigate whether men and women differ in self-reports of feelings and expressive behavior, evaluating whether the patterns observed for men and women are consistent with cultural beliefs as well as predictions from two sociological theories about emotion and two sociological theories about gender. Surprisingly, self-reports do not support cultural beliefs about gender differences in the frequency of everyday subjective feelings in general. Men and women do, however, differ in the frequency of certain positive and negative feelings, which is explained by their difference in social position. The implications of the findings for theory and research on both gender and emotion are discussed. According to several emotions scholars, societies contain emotion cultures, which include beliefs about gender and emotion (Cancian 1987; Gordon 1 We are grateful to Peggy Thoits, Sarah Rosenfield, Dawn Robinson, Jim Jasper, Allan Horwitz, and especially Brian Powell and the AJS reviewers for their contributions to this article. Thanks, too, to members of the sociology department at Florida State University for their thoughtful remarks. We are also thankful to the National Science Foundation for funding the emotions module in the 1996 General Social Survey. An earlier version of the article was presented at the 2001 annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in Anaheim, California. Direct correspondence to Robin Simon, 613 Bellamy Building, Department of Sociology, Center for Demography and Population Health, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved /2004/ $10.00 AJS Volume 109 Number 5 (March 2004):

2 American Journal of Sociology 1981; Hochschild 1975, 1979; Shields 2002; Smith-Lovin 1995; Stearns 1992; Thoits 1989). Part of U.S. emotion culture is the long-standing and widely held belief that women are both more emotional and more emotionally expressive than men. Our emotion culture also includes beliefs about the frequencies and distributions of specific affective experiences and behavior among males and females. Women are believed to feel and express sadness more frequently than men, whereas men are believed to feel and express anger more frequently than women. Beliefs about men s and women s subjective feelings and expressive behavior are evident in everyday social life as well as in popular culture including self-help and advice books, literature, music, television, and film. However, we do not know whether men s and women s affective experiences and behavior are consistent with cultural beliefs about gender and emotion since until recently, we lacked systematic information about the social distribution of everyday subjective feelings and expressive behavior among adults in the United States. We use data from the emotions module of the 1996 General Social Survey (GSS) that contains respondents self-reports of everyday feelings and expressive behavior to assess whether men and women differ in affective experience and behavior. We also evaluate whether the patterns observed for men and women are consistent with predictions from two sociological theories about emotion and two sociological theories about gender. BACKGROUND Sociological Theories about Gender and Emotion Contemporary emotions theorists generally agree that emotions involve complex combinations of physiological sensations, cognitive appraisals of situations, cultural labels, and free or inhibited affective displays (see Thoits [1989] for this particular formulation and Schachter and Singer [1962] for an earlier two-factor theory of emotion). However, although few sociologists of emotion would deny that the social context in which situations occur influences individuals emotional responses and that cultural beliefs about men s and women s emotions exist in the United States, they offer different and often conflicting theoretical predictions about what we should find with respect to the relationship between gender and emotion. We focus on two sociological theories about emotion Hochschild s normative theory and Kemper s structural theory. Hochschild s normative theory about emotion (1975, 1981) predicts male-female differences in feelings and expressive behavior that are consistent with gender-specific emotion beliefs. Hochschild argues that cultural beliefs about emotion influence individuals feelings and expressions 1138

3 Gender and Emotion in the United States vis-à-vis feeling and expression norms that specify the emotions individuals should (and should not) feel and express in given situations. Feeling rules are cultural norms that specify the appropriate type, intensity, duration, and target of subjective feelings (or internal experience). Expression rules are cultural norms that regulate the type, intensity, duration, and target of emotional behavior (or affective displays). According to Hochschild, feeling and expression rules provide standards by which individuals judge their own and other s emotions. When people s feelings and expressions depart from cultural norms, they often engage in emotion management, expression management, or both in order to create a more appropriate emotional response. To the extent that our emotion culture includes feeling and expression norms which specify that women should, and men should not, be emotional and emotionally expressive we should find that women report that they experience and express emotions more often than men in general. Similarly, insofar as our emotion culture contains norms that discourage men from feeling and expressing sadness and women from feeling and expressing anger, we should also find that women report that they experience and express sadness more often than men and that men report that they experience and express anger more often than women. In contrast to Hochschild s normative theory, Kemper s structural theory about emotion (1978, 1981, 1990, 1991) predicts a pattern of subjective feelings for men and women that departs from cultural beliefs about gender and emotion. According to Kemper, structural factors such as individuals social position vis-à-vis others rather than cultural derived emotion norms influence their emotional responses to social situations. Kemper argues that status and power are two fundamental dimensions of social relationships that elicit specific emotions during social interaction when relational power and status are maintained or changed. He claims that persons with more status and power in a relationship experience positive emotions such as happiness and security, whereas those with less power and status experience negative emotions such as fear, sadness, and anger. Although Kemper focuses on relational status and power between persons in interaction episodes, an implication of his theory is that persons with higher status and power in society experience more positive feelings, whereas persons with lower status and power experience more negative feelings. A further implication is that since women tend to have lower status and power than men in the United States, we should find that men report positive emotions more often than women, while women report negative emotions (including anger) more often than men. We should also find, however, that gender differences in the frequency of positive and negative emotional experiences are explained by male-female differences in social position (i.e., status and power). 1139

4 American Journal of Sociology Sociological theories about gender also offer predictions about the relationship between gender and emotion. Once again, we focus on two of these theories Parsons s functional theory and structural theories about gender. Parsons s functional theory about gender (1955, 1964) predicts male-female differences in subjective feelings and expressive behavior that are generally consistent with cultural beliefs about men s and women s emotions. Parsons argues that the division of labor in modern societies requires men and women to specialize in different roles, which is functional for the maintenance and well-being of the family. Women s expressive roles which involve caring for others within the home require emotionality. In contrast, men s instrumental roles which involve earning a family wage outside the home require unemotionality (or emotional reserve). According to Parsons, boys and girls learn the emotional temperaments associated with their future roles through gender role socialization. Although he attributes women s presumed emotionality and men s supposed unemotionality to the emotional requirements of their roles in the family rather than to cultural norms about emotion as does Hochschild we should find that women report most, if not all, emotions more often than men. We should also find that women report that they express their emotions more readily than men. 2 While Parsons claims that men and women have fundamentally different emotional predispositions, structural theorists of gender assert that what appears from the outset to be gender differences in a range of social psychological characteristics and behavior are what Epstein (1988) calls deceptive distinctions. According to structural theories about gender, the different characteristics and behavior that are often observed for men and women mask the different positions they hold in social institutions such as the workplace and family (Kanter 1977; Risman 1987). Ridgeway (1993; Ridgeway and Johnson 1990) provides a similar argument for gender differences in socioemotional behavior, which she attributes to malefemale differences in status expectations. Indeed, this theoretical perspective posits that men and women would be similar were it not for their different (and unequal) structural positions in society. Extending these insights to emotions, this theoretical perspective predicts that most, if not all, gender differences in feelings and expressive behavior can be explained by differences between men s and women s structural locations and role experiences. Similar to Kemper s structural theory about emotion, an im- 2 Parsons s functional theory about gender is based on a division of labor that was common in the 1950s but is no longer typical in a period when the majority of women work outside the home. Nevertheless, we examine his theory s predictions about gender differences in emotion because it reflects current cultural beliefs about men s and women s everyday subjective feelings and expressive behavior. 1140

5 Gender and Emotion in the United States plication of structural theories about gender is that men and women differ in the frequency with which they experience positive and negative feelings according to their different (and unequal) social positions. Research on Gender and Emotion In light of prevailing cultural beliefs about gender differences in emotion as well as the surge of scholarly interest in both gender and emotion, there is surprisingly little sociological research that compares men s and women s everyday feelings and expressive behavior. As Thoits (1989) and Smith-Lovin (1995) both note in their reviews of the field of emotion, the sociology of affect is theoretically rich but limited in empirical evidence. There is some evidence of gender-specific norms about certain emotions. In-depth qualitative studies have identified feeling and expression norms about male and female anger (Cancian and Gordon 1988; Shields and Koster 1989; Stearns and Stearns 1986) and romantic love (Cancian 1987; Simon, Eder, and Evans 1992; Swidler 1980). There is also some evidence of gender differences in feelings and expressive behavior that are consistent with cultural beliefs and norms about males and females emotions. Thorne s (1993) and Eder s (1995) ethnographic studies of children and adolescents show that boys are given greater latitude than girls in expressing anger in playground and school contexts. Moreover, based on college students descriptions of an emotional experience, Hochschild (1981) finds that women pay closer attention to feelings of love than do men (also see Peplau and Gordon 1985). Using a similar methodology, Thoits s (1989) study of college students reveals that, when faced with a stressful situation, women are more likely to express their feelings and cope with their emotions by seeking social support. However, while these studies provide rich and detailed information about gender and emotion in the United States with respect to a few specific emotions in small, highly select samples, they offer little insight into gender differences in a range of feelings and expressive behavior in the general population. To date, most of the empirical research on gender and emotion has been conducted by psychologists, who focus on gender differences in emotion beliefs as well as on subjective feelings and expressive behavior among children, adolescents, and young adults. This research, which tends to be based on experimental methods, indicates that both males and females judge and subsequently label females as more emotional and emotionally expressive than males (e.g., Robinson and Johnson 1997). This research also shows that as early as preschool age, both males and females believe that sadness and fear are closely associated with females, whereas anger is closely associated with males (e.g., Birnbaum 1983). Studies further find that females are more expressive than males in response to a 1141

6 American Journal of Sociology variety of experimental stimuli (Blier and Blier 1989; Brody 1997; Kring and Gordon 1998), although findings are mixed with regard to gender differences in experienced emotion. While some studies find that females report more feelings than males, others find no significant gender differences in experienced emotion (see Brody [1985] and Brody and Hall [1993] for an extensive review). On the basis of these and other findings, developmental psychologists have suggested that the expression of emotion may be more heavily socialized than the experience of emotion (Brody 1993; Fischer 2000; Kring and Gordon 1998). From a developmental perspective, these findings also suggest that males learn to conceal their feelings relatively early in life, whereas females learn to express their emotions more freely. These studies contribute to our understanding of gender and emotion among children, adolescents, and young adults in experimental settings; however, they tell us little about gender differences in everyday feelings and expressive behavior in the general population. In contrast to the above literatures, a large body of sociological research on mental health has examined gender differences in emotional distress in the general population. This research, which is based on survey data from community and national samples of adults, consistently indicates that women report more symptoms than men of generalized emotional distress, anxiety, and depression (Meyers et al. 1984; Mirowsky and Ross 2003). Because feelings of fear and sadness are key components of anxiety and depression subscales, epidemiological research strongly suggests that women experience negative emotions more often than men and, by extension, that men experience positive feelings more often than women (Bradburn and Caplovitz 1965; Campbell, Converse, and Rodgers 1976; Mirowsky and Ross 1995). Indeed, these suggested patterns would be consistent with Kemper s structural theory about emotion and structural theories about gender, which argue that lower status persons (i.e., women) experience more negative feelings, while higher status persons (i.e., men) experience more positive emotions. On the other hand, research on mental health also documents that there are no gender differences in overall levels of emotional distress when male and female types of emotional problems are both considered (Kessler et al. 1993). That is, although women report higher levels of internalizing emotional problems such as anxiety and depression, men report higher levels of externalizing emotional problems such as substance abuse (Aneshensel 1992; Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend 1976; Horwitz, White, and Howell-White 1996; Lennon 1987; Rosenfield 1999; Simon 2002). Moreover, epidemiological studies of adolescents echo these patterns of emotional distress among adults (Avison and McAlpine 1992; Gore, Aseltine, and Colten 1992; Rosenfield et al. 2000). These latter findings suggest that males and females may differ in the expression, but not necessarily 1142

7 Gender and Emotion in the United States in the experience, of certain negative emotions. However, while research on mental health provides insight into gender differences in emotional distress in the general population of adolescents and adults, anxiety and depression are chronic moods and are not everyday emotional responses to social situations. This research, therefore, also tells us little about the social epidemiology of everyday feelings and expressive behavior in the United States. Sociologists have recently begun to systematically examine group differences in emotion, particularly anger. Interestingly, a study based on survey data from a national sample of adults reveals that, in contrast to cultural beliefs, women report that they experience and express anger more frequently than men (Ross and Van Willigen 1996). Since anger is a negative emotion, these findings provide some preliminary support for structural theories about emotion and about gender. However, while this research has begun to assess gender differences in anger in the general population of adults, researchers have not yet examined whether men and women differ in the ways in which they cope with and express anger. This is an important issue for emotions research since there is some psychological evidence that females express anger verbally, whereas males express anger behaviorally (Brody 1993, 1997; Buntaine and Costenbader 1997; Frost and Averill 1982; Kring 2000). Taken together, although research has come a long way by identifying some gender-specific feeling and expression norms, elucidating normative influences on some of the feelings and expressions of males and females and documenting some gender differences in feelings and expressive behavior, there are still considerable gaps in our knowledge about gender and emotion. As Thoits (1989) pointed out over a decade ago, we lack basic information about the frequencies and distributions of a range of affective experiences and behavior among men and women in the United States. Consequently, we still do not know whether men s and women s everyday subjective feelings and expressive behavior are consistent with cultural beliefs about gender and emotion. Since assumptions about men s and women s feelings and behavior underlie sociological theories about emotion as well as sociological theories about gender, the findings of such analyses have important implications for theoretical debates about emotion and about gender. In this article, we assess whether men and women differ in affective experience and behavior by focusing on self-reports of everyday subjective feelings and expressive behavior in a nationally representative sample of adults. The following three questions guide our analyses: First, do women report more frequent emotions than men? Second, do men and women differ in the frequency with which they report a range of different emo- 1143

8 American Journal of Sociology tions including sadness and anger? Third, do women report greater emotional expressiveness than men? We also evaluate whether the patterns observed for men and women are consistent with predictions from Hochschild s and Kemper s theories about emotion as well as Parsons s and structural theories about gender. If Hochschild s normative theory about emotion and Parsons s functional theory about gender are correct, we should find gender differences that are consistent with cultural beliefs about gender and emotion. That is, we should find that women report that they experience and express emotions more often than men in general. We should also find that women report that they experience and express sadness more often than men, while men report that they experience and express anger more often than women. However, if Kemper s structural theory about emotion and structural theories about gender are correct, we should find that men report positive emotions more often than women, while women report negative emotions including anger more often than men. We should also find that gender differences in the frequency of positive and negative emotions are explained by male-female differences in social position. Overall, while our analyses shed light on men s and women s everyday feelings and expressive behavior in the United States, they also provide insight into the feelings and expressive behavior of other social groups in the population as well as the social structuring of emotion. METHODS Data Our analyses are based on data from the 1996 emotions module of the GSS. The GSS, which has been conducted regularly since 1972, is based on a nationally representative sample of adults living in households in the United States. About one-half (N p 1,460) of the 2,904 respondents who were interviewed that year were asked a variety of questions about their affective experiences and behavior. The module contained questions about the frequency with which respondents experienced 19 different emotions, including a range of both positive and negative feelings. A subset of respondents who reported that they felt anger at least one day during the previous week (N p 1,125) were asked follow-up questions about their anger. About one-half of the module respondents (N p 755) were selected to answer questions about their expressive behavior. 1144

9 Measures Gender and Emotion in the United States Emotional experience. Respondents were asked how many days in the previous week they felt calm, contented, at ease, happy, excited, overjoyed, proud, fearful, anxious, restless, worried, blue, sad, lonely, outraged, mad, angry, ashamed, and embarrassed. In order to assess whether women report emotions more frequently than men in general, we computed a summary measure of all feelings by adding scores on these 19 feelings; this measure ranges from 4 to 107 (a p.65). Moreover, in order to assess whether men and women differ in the frequency with which they report positive and negative emotions, we computed a summary measure of all positive feelings, which consists of the first seven feelings, and a summary measure of all negative feelings, which is based on the latter 12 emotions. Scores on these measures range from 0 to 49 (a p.76) and 0 to 71 (a p.84), respectively. We also conducted factor analyses on the 19 feelings, which clustered into five different factors. Based on the results of these analyses as well as prior research on the cognitive structure of emotions (Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988) and the structure of psychological well-being (Bradburn 1969; Mirowsky and Ross 2003), we constructed measures of six different feeling states, including: calm feelings (from a low of 0 to a high of 21; a p.74), excited feelings (from 0 to 28; a p.67), anxious feelings (from 0 to 21; a p.69), sad feelings (from 0 to 21; a p.73), angry feelings (from 0 to 21; a p.86), and feelings of shame (from 0 to 14; a p.63). The items that comprise all of our measures of emotional experience appear in appendix A (table A1), which also shows the mean scores for each item and each measure for the total analysis sample as well as separately for women and men. 3 Anger. A subset of respondents who reported that they felt angry at least one day during the previous week were asked a series of follow-up questions about their anger, including: How intense was your anger? How long did your anger last? and Do you feel your reaction was appropriate? Because emotions scholars, including Hochschild and Kemper, have focused on anger, and because it is an emotion that is presumed to be more common among men than women, we explored whether the respondents differed in these aspects of their angry feelings. Scores for 3 Although we created separate measures for calm and anxious feelings, the variables included in these two measures actually loaded into a single factor in the exploratory factor analyses, which suggests that these constructed feeling states represent two sides of a continuum for a similar type or class of emotions. We analyze these feeling states as two separate measures because calm feelings represent positive, and anxious feelings represent negative, emotional experiences. We also wanted to compare our results for anxious feelings with the findings of research on gender and mental health, which tends to focus on these (and other) negative emotions. 1145

10 American Journal of Sociology intensity of anger experienced range from 0 (not at all intense) to 10 (very intense), length of time anger was experienced range from 1 (a few seconds) to 6 (continuously), and felt their reaction was appropriate range from 0 (completely inappropriate) to 10 (very appropriate). We also explored whether men and women differ with respect to their self-reports of 15 strategies people use to cope with and manage their anger, including whether they thought about the situation, had a drink or took a pill, talked to the person they are angry at, talked to someone else, tried to forget about the situation, tried to change the situation, prayed for help from God, fantasized about a magical solution, went out to get some exercise, yelled or hit something, waited for the feelings to pass, tried to accept the situation, left the situation, thought about how to get revenge, and planned how to end the relationship. These coping strategies are measured as dichotomous variables (yes p 1) and are shown in appendix table B1, which also presents the mean scores on all of the anger-related variables for the total analysis sample and separately for women and men. Expressive behavior. Finally, a subset of respondents were asked whether they strongly agree (coded 1 ) to strongly disagree (coded 5 ) with the following six statements pertaining to their expressive behavior: I keep my emotions to myself. 2. When anxious, I try not to worry anyone else. 3. I don t tell friends something upsetting. 4. I try to be pleasant so as not to upset others. 5. I m not afraid to show my feelings. 6. When I m angry, I let people know. With the exception of the last two variables which were reverse coded high scores, therefore, reflect disagreements with these statements. In order to assess whether women report more emotional expressiveness than men in general, we computed a summary measure of emotional expressiveness based on the first five items listed above. Scores on this measure range from 5 to 25 (a p.58), with high scores indicating greater expressiveness. Note that we did not include the sixth item of emotional expression in our summary measure because it focuses on the expression of anger which our emotion culture and Hochschild s normative theory about emotion assume is greater for men than for women. We did, however, conduct analyses of this item along with the other five individual items of emotional expression. Appendix table C1 presents the means for each of these items and the summary measure for the total analysis sample and separately for women and men. Sociodemographic and status characteristics. To assess whether so-

11 Gender and Emotion in the United States ciodemographic differences between men and women are involved in gender differences in emotion, we include age (in years), education (in years), and household income (in dollars) as well as three dummy variables for race (white p 1; black p 1; other p 1) in all of our analyses. To reduce the number of missing cases, we assigned mean scores on household income to respondents who had missing data on this variable those scores were imputed on the basis of the respondent s gender, age, race, and education as well as their marital, parental, and employment status. Moreover, to assess whether differences between men s and women s role involvements and experiences are implicated in gender differences in emotion, our analyses also include respondents marital, parental, and employment status, all of which were measured as dichotomous variables (married p 1; parent p 1; employed p 1). Gender, which is our main independent variable of interest, is also measured as a dichotomous variable (female p 1). 4 Analytic Strategy The analyses are straightforward and follow the same logic for each set of dependent variables. To examine the associations between gender and emotion, our first model includes gender only. To assess the influence of sociodemographic characteristics on emotion as well as on the relationship between gender and emotion, we add respondents age, race, education, and household income in the second model. The third and final model also includes respondents marital, parental, and employment status in order to investigate the influence of these social positions on emotion as well as on the associations between gender and emotion. The analyses are based on respondents who had complete information on the variables in our models; our resulting sample contains 1,346 persons for the emo- 4 Whites are the omitted category for race in the analyses. Consistent with earlier research on gender and mental health, we coded respondents as parents if they had one or more children under 18 living at home. Since greater numbers of children, rather than simply their presence, may be critical for understanding gender differences in emotion as Ross and Van Willigen s (1996) study of anger demonstrated all of the analyses presented here were also conducted with a continuous variable for the number of children under 18 living in the respondent s household in place of the dichotomous parental status variable. While the inclusion of the continuous parental status variable does not change our main substantive results, we found that the presence of young children at home is a better predictor of affective experience than the number of young children in the household. The tables we present, therefore, include the dichotomous parental status variable but we mention the significant results for the continuous parental status variable in the results section that follows. Tables for these analyses are available upon request. 1147

12 American Journal of Sociology tional experience analyses, 1,035 individuals for the anger analyses, and 683 people for the analyses of expressive behavior. Although they do not appear in the tables we present, we also conduct interactional analyses for gender with all of the independent variables in order to explore whether the effects of sociodemographic and status characteristics on emotion differ for women and men. We are especially interested in testing two hypotheses found in theory and research on gender and mental health that marriage and parenthood have different consequences for the emotions of women and men. In particular, we evaluate whether being unmarried is associated with more frequent negative emotions for women than for men (e.g., Simon 2002). We also evaluate whether living with young children is associated with more frequent negative emotions for mothers than for fathers (e.g., Ross and Willigen 1996). We only discuss significant interactions in the results section, but tables that include these analyses are available upon request. The GSS emotions module is an excellent resource for emotions researchers because it allows us to compare self-reports of feelings and expressive behavior of different social groups in the United States. As we mentioned earlier, most prior research on emotion has been based on either qualitative data from small, highly select samples or on data based on experimental methods in laboratory settings. These are very informative, but they cannot be used to answer questions about the social distribution (and social structuring) of everyday feelings and affective behavior in the general population. However, because cultural beliefs about gender and emotion may be influential, results of analyses based on subjective selfreports should be interpreted cautiously: impression management concerns may lead respondents to give what they believe are socially desirable responses. The problem of potential response bias in data based on selfreports is, of course, not limited to the study of emotion. If in this case, responses were guided by cultural norms, we would find a great deal of correspondence between men s and women s self-reports of feelings and expressive behavior and cultural beliefs about gender and emotion. As we will show, this is not the case. The gender differences we do find in affective experience and expression often depart from cultural beliefs about men s and women s emotions. Relatedly, it is possible that cultural expectations about gender and emotion lead men and women to interpret differentially questions about emotion, and these interpretational differences may then be actually responsible for observed gender differences in self-reports of feelings and expressive behavior. To investigate this possibility, we conducted confirmatory factor analyses of both the emotional experience and expression items separately for males and females. Although there is some interesting variation in the factor loadings for some of our summary measures of 1148

13 Gender and Emotion in the United States emotional experience, the overall patterns are similar for men and for women, which suggests that the gender differences in self-reports of feelings and expressive behavior we find are not simply due to interpretational differences between the genders. 5 The sociodemographic and status characteristics of the analysis sample by gender appear in table 1. Although the men and women in our sample do not differ with respect to race, age, and education, there are notable gender differences in household income as well as in marital, parental, and employment status. Not surprisingly, women are more likely to report lower household incomes than men. Moreover, while men are more likely than women to be both married and employed, women are more likely than men to be residing with children under the age of 18. RESULTS Do Women Report More Frequent Emotions than Men? In our first set of analyses, we assess whether women report emotions more frequently than men in general. We also examine whether men and women differ in the frequency with which they report positive and negative emotions. Table 2 contains the results of analyses in which we regress all feelings, all positive feelings, and all negative feelings first on respondents gender, then on their sociodemographic characteristics, and finally on their social statuses. There are two main findings regarding gender and emotion in table 2. First, women do not report emotions more frequently than men. In contrast to cultural beliefs as well as Hochschild s normative theory about emotion and Parsons s functional theory about gender, we do not find a significant difference in the frequency with which men and women report feelings in general (see model 1). This finding holds after controlling for respondents sociodemographic characteristics in model 2 and social statuses in model 3. There is significant age and household income variation in the frequency of emotional experiences. Younger persons and those with lower levels of household income report more frequent feelings than 5 Although the clusters for our six measures of feeling states are generally consistent for men and women, confirmatory factor analyses of these items revealed some interesting variation by gender. For example, while feelings of anxiety and sadness form two distinct factors for women, they form only one factor for men which suggests that men do not distinguish between these types of negative emotions as clearly as do women. We also found that the magnitude of the loadings for shame and embarrassment is greater for women than for men. These patterns are consistent with those reported by Lively and Heise (2004), who also evaluated these items using the same data. 1149

14 American Journal of Sociology TABLE 1 Sociodemographic Characteristics of Analysis Sample by Gender 1150 Characteristics Total Male Female Age (mean years) (16.3) (15.9) (16.6) Race: White (%) Black (%) Other (%) Education (mean years) (2.8) (2.8) (2.8) Household income ($) ,750 28,999 23,250 Married (%) Children under 18 at home (%) Employed (%) N , Note. Nos. in parentheses are SDs. older persons and those with higher household incomes (see model 2). Additionally, while there is no significant black-white difference in the frequency of all feelings, white persons report significantly more frequent feelings than persons with other racial backgrounds. Although there are no significant social status differences in the frequency with which persons report feelings in model 3, results of supplemental interactional analyses (not shown here but available upon request) indicate that the negative effect of household income on the frequency of emotional experiences is significantly greater for men than for women. Second, although there is no significant difference in the frequency with which men and women report emotions in general, there are significant gender differences in the frequency with which they report positive and negative emotions. Men report positive feelings more often than women (see model 4). In fact, the gender difference in positive feelings remains significant after sociodemographic and status characteristics are included in models 5 and 6. Age and education are also associated with positive feelings; older persons and those with higher levels of education report positive emotions significantly more often than their younger and less educated peers (see model 5). Moreover, while respondents with children under 18 at home do not significantly differ from persons not residing with young children (see model 6), supplemental analyses (not shown here but available upon request) reveal that the number of children under 18 in the household is significantly (and negatively) related to the frequency of positive emotions. In contrast to positive affect, women report negative feelings significantly more often than men (see model 7). However, the difference in the

16 American Journal of Sociology frequency with which men and women report negative emotions becomes nonsignificant once their sociodemographic characteristics are held constant in model 8. Interestingly, supplemental analyses (not reported here but available upon request) reveal that household income is responsible for reducing the gender coefficient to nonsignificance. Younger persons and those with lower levels of education and household income also report negative feelings significantly more often than their older and more educated and economically advantaged counterparts (see model 8). Furthermore, while race is not associated with positive emotions, white persons report significantly more frequent negative feelings than persons with other racial identities. Finally, although marital, parental, and employment statuses do not have significant main effects on the frequency of negative emotions (see model 9), interactional analyses (not shown here but available upon request) reveal that the negative effect of household income on the frequency of these feelings is significantly greater for men, while the modest negative effect of being married on these feelings is significantly greater for women. The latter finding is consistent with the hypothesis that being unmarried is associated with more frequent negative emotions for women than for men a finding that has been documented in research on gender, marital status, and mental health (e.g., Simon 2002). Overall, these findings provide support for Kemper s structural theory about emotion and structural theories about gender, which both argue that persons with higher status in society (i.e., men) experience more frequent positive emotions, whereas lower-status persons (i.e., women) experience more frequent negative feelings. Indeed, our results indicate that differences between men s and women s household income which is a major component of individuals socioeconomic status account for differences in the frequency with which they report negative feelings. Additional support for Kemper s structural theory about emotion is evident in our results for the effects of age, education, and household income on self-reports of the frequency of positive and negative feelings. Taken together, this first set of analyses indicates that women do not report more frequent emotional experiences than men in general, although there are gender differences in the frequency with which men and women report positive and negative emotions. 6 6 We also examined whether men and women differ in the sheer number of feelings they reported in the previous week. Since the emotions module contains more negative than positive feelings (and women report more frequent negative feelings than do men), it is not surprising that women report that they experience a greater number of feelings during the past week relative to men. Tables for these auxiliary analyses are available upon request. 1152

17 Gender and Emotion in the United States Do Men and Women Differ in the Frequency with Which They Report Specific Emotions? Our next set of analyses assesses whether men and women differ in the frequency with which they report specific emotions. Table 3 contains the results of analyses in which we regress the six different constructed feeling states, including calm feelings, excited feelings, anxious feelings, sad feelings, angry feelings, and feelings of shame on gender, sociodemographic characteristics, and social statuses. A number of interesting findings are evident in table 3. Men report calm feelings more frequently than women (see model 1). The gender difference in self-reports of feeling calm remains significant with the inclusion of respondents sociodemographic characteristics in model 2, but becomes nonsignificant when respondents social statuses are included in model 3. Interestingly, auxiliary analyses (not shown here but available upon request) reveal that having children under 18 in the household is responsible for reducing the gender coefficient to nonsignificance. Older and more educated persons also report calm feelings significantly more often than younger and less educated individuals (see model 2). Moreover, parents with children younger than 18 at home report calm feelings significantly less often than persons not living with young children (see model 3). Additional analyses (not reported here but available upon request) reveal that the number of children under 18 in the household is also significantly (and negatively) associated with calm feelings. Additionally, men report feelings of excitement significantly more frequently than women (see model 4), and this pattern holds after sociodemographic and status characteristics are controlled in models 5 and 6. Although there are no significant age or social status differences in selfreports of the frequency of excited feelings, more highly educated individuals report these emotions significantly more often than their less educated peers (see model 5). On the other side of the coin, women report anxious feelings significantly more often than men (see model 7). This finding is consistent with research on gender and mental health, which documents more symptoms of anxiety among women (Mirowsky and Ross 2003). The gender difference in self-reports of the frequency of anxious feelings persists after sociodemographic characteristics are included in model 8, but becomes nonsignificant when social statuses are held constant in model 9. Paralleling our findings for calm feelings, auxiliary analyses (not shown here but available upon request) reveal that having young children in the household is responsible for reducing the gender coefficient for anxious feelings to nonsignificance. There is also significant race, age, educational, and household income variation in anxious feelings; persons who are 1153

20 American Journal of Sociology white, younger, less educated, and have lower household incomes report these feelings more often than blacks and people with other racial backgrounds as well as those who are older, more educated, and have higher household incomes (see model 8). Not surprisingly, persons with young children at home also report anxious feelings significantly more often than persons not residing with young children (see model 9). These findings are also consistent with research that documents status differences in anxiety (Mirowsky and Ross 2003). Supplemental interactional analyses (not reported here but available upon request) reveal that the negative effect of household income on the frequency of anxious feelings is significantly greater for men, whereas the modest negative effect of being married on the frequency of these emotions is significantly greater for women which is consistent with the interactional hypothesis about marriage. Additionally, women report feelings of sadness significantly more often than men (see model 10), and this pattern holds after respondents sociodemographic and status characteristics are included in models 11 and 12. This finding is consistent with cultural beliefs about gender and sadness as well as the vast literature on gender and depression, which documents higher rates of depression among females (Kessler et al. 1993; Meyers et al. 1984; Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Simon 2002). Age, education, and household income are also significantly associated with feelings of sadness; persons who are younger and who have lower levels of education and household income report these feelings more often than their older, more educated, and more economically advantaged counterparts (see model 11). While there is no significant parental status difference in the frequency of feelings of sadness, both married and employed persons report these emotions significantly less often than their unmarried and nonemployed peers (see model 12). These findings are also consistent with earlier research, which documents less depression among both the married and the employed (Mirowsky and Ross 2003). Interestingly, auxiliary interactional analyses (not shown here but available upon request) reveal that while the negative effect of household income on feelings of sadness is significantly greater for men, the negative effect of being married on the frequency of these emotions is not significantly greater for women which is inconsistent with the interactional hypothesis about marriage. We do not, however, find a gender difference in self-reports of the frequency of feelings of anger. While the gender coefficient for anger is negative, it is not significant in models This finding is inconsistent with cultural beliefs about gender and anger as well as recent survey research, which shows a female excess of this emotion (Ross and Van 1156

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